For those not paying attention, EPA has slowly been regulating the hell out of coal. Initially it was mostly regulations related to polutants, causing coal companies to upgrade plants with "scrubbers" and other very high cost technology to treat the exhaust and remove sulfer, particulates and other type of polution. This has caused smaller and older plants to shut down. This combined with the glut of gas has caused very hard times indeed for the coal industry. The reason they pick on coal is that it is by far the dirtiest source of electricity in terms of pollutants (ie things that hurt you, not CO2), and it is also the biggest CO2 emitter per unit of energy generated. Coal is very long chain hydrocarbon, so it has about 2 hydrogen per carbon atom. Methane, aka natural gas, has 4 hydrogen per carbon atom. Liquid fuels like gasoline and diesel fall in between these two. Combined cycle natural gas power plants also have higher thermal efficiency than steam generators used in coal fired plants. Combined cycle plants have a gas turbine pared with a steam turbine to capture heat from the gas after it has passed through the gas turbine. A gas turbine can have a thermal efficiency of up to about 42%, and a steam turbine can reach about 31% for a combined cycle efficiency of of about 60% in modern gas fired power stations.
So yesterday this article caught my attention
http://thehill.com/regulation/energy-environment/205902-obama-coal-rules-will-devastate-say-biz-groups
I had heard about the attempts by EPA to regulate CO2 but I didn't look at the details, because I had heard that it only applied to new-build plants. And no one builds new coal plants anyway. The article implies that it is for coal plants more generally. I'm not sure if this is just an effort to drum up right wing histeria or if there actually is a broader rule being proposed. I still only see the proposed rule applying to new plants:
from september 2013 EPA:
http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0/da9640577ceacd9f85257beb006cb2b6!OpenDocument
1,100 lb of carbon per MWH would basically ban any new coal plant that doesn't have carbon capture and sequestration (which none do currently). That number was clearly selected because modern gas can reach that limit. Coal can't come anywhere close. The best coal plants burning the cleanest coal still generate about 2x that amount of CO2 per MWH. Here's a link from EIA with their estimates:
http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=74&t=11
What will be interesting is that if the EPA is able to set this precedent of regulating CO2, then in the future they could set a more stringent rule that would also apply to coal plants more generally.
So yesterday this article caught my attention
http://thehill.com/regulation/energy-environment/205902-obama-coal-rules-will-devastate-say-biz-groups
I had heard about the attempts by EPA to regulate CO2 but I didn't look at the details, because I had heard that it only applied to new-build plants. And no one builds new coal plants anyway. The article implies that it is for coal plants more generally. I'm not sure if this is just an effort to drum up right wing histeria or if there actually is a broader rule being proposed. I still only see the proposed rule applying to new plants:
from september 2013 EPA:
http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0/da9640577ceacd9f85257beb006cb2b6!OpenDocument
1,100 lb of carbon per MWH would basically ban any new coal plant that doesn't have carbon capture and sequestration (which none do currently). That number was clearly selected because modern gas can reach that limit. Coal can't come anywhere close. The best coal plants burning the cleanest coal still generate about 2x that amount of CO2 per MWH. Here's a link from EIA with their estimates:
http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=74&t=11
What will be interesting is that if the EPA is able to set this precedent of regulating CO2, then in the future they could set a more stringent rule that would also apply to coal plants more generally.
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